The present invention relates to an information display system having a graphical user interface (GUI).
With a spread of the Internet over the recent years, a technology of readily browsing the information has been demanded. As a result, an information display system incorporating a program known as a browser was developed. The conventional browser has only one display area, and hence the user switches over a page by updating the information in that display area by overwriting, or starting another browser and displaying the information thereon, or rewriting a content in the same display area by selecting an index called a tab.
Generally, the information browsed on the Internet takes a structure called a web, in which plural pieces of information are linked. This mechanism for connecting the information to the information is known as a “link”. In the Internet, the user is able to browse the items of information related to each other by following the links. The links can be normally followed by clicking the information indicating the link with a pointing device such as a mouse etc.
In the conventional display system displays the information to be browsed in the single display area and is therefore very hard to use in the following applications in some cases.
(1) When the user refers to a link destination (clicks a link) from one item of information (which will hereinafter be called an original page) on the Internet, the information of the link destination is displayed by erasing the original page. Therefore, if the user tries to refer to other item of information linked to the original page, the user must executes an operation of getting [Back] to the original page each time. Further, the user must perform an operation of starting the browser again and displaying the original page thereon in order to avoid the laborious [Back] operation.
(2) The user is unable to compare two contents on the conventional one browser. For example, in the case of creating two schemes of homepage and trying to compare them with each other and of comparing commercial articles in Net shopping, the user must start the two browsers.
(3) When the user attempts to arrange plural items of information in the same screen dimensions, it takes a labor to adjust the screen dimensions of the browsers opened separately and arrange them.
(4) When the user tries to get back to a specified page after following the plurality of links, the user must return by executing the [Back] function each time. In this case, the prior art provided a function of displaying a history of having followed the links with characters of tiles of respective pages and specifying a return page. The title characters do not, however, enable the user to sufficiently grasp contents of that page. The user is therefore unable to accurately find out the desired page in the history.
(5) On the typical browser, a page exhibiting a high frequency of accessing by user is registered by utilizing a bookmark function (this page will hereinafter be referred to as a registered page). The user is, however, unable to browse a plurality of registered pages at one time.
(6) When the user attempts to monitor an image and a picture on the page updated periodically, e.g., at an interval of several minutes, if the user is tempted to browse another page until the former page is updated, there might be a possibility in which the user fails to see the updating of the former image and the picture that should be monitored.
(7) On the conventional browser, the user selects the page to be displayed by inputting an address in an address input field or picking up a desired page from a list of registered pages. The selection mode of these modes takes operating steps in which a hierarchy-structured list is displayed, and the user clicks the page with the mouse. Therefore, the user is required to refer to the hierarchy-structured list in order to select the desired page, which is complicated in terms of operation.
On the other hand, an information processing system of nowadays such as a personal computer etc uses a variety of programs such as mailer for reading mail information in addition to the browser described above, depending on a category of the information. The user operates those program in a graphical user interface (GUI) environment. A display on the screen, which is as an operation target and represents a program or information, is called an object.
In the GUI environment, a typical technique of moving this object is an operation known as a drag involving the use a pointing device. The drag is to manipulate the pointing device such as the mouse etc in a way of pulling (dragging) the object while pointing the object in order to bring the object that the user wishes to move to a position where the user wishes to move the object.
In the prior art, if the object displayed on the screen is overlaid by other object and the whole or apart of this object is invisible, the user has hitherto moved the object overlaying the former object by dragging it.
This operation method needs a space for operating the pointing device such as the mouse etc. Further, the operation of moving the object while depressing a mouse button is also required of the user. Hence, there arises a problem inherent in this operation method, wherein the operation is hard to persons advanced in age and children or persons somewhat disable in their hands.
While on the other hand, if the user sets the object displayed on the upper side in a non-display state, the problem described above is not caused. If the object overlaying indicates the information necessary for the user, however, a demand is that both of the upper and lower objects should be displayed.